Mobile phone long-distance charges will be simplified and reduced next year with the scrapping of roaming and local fees, China's telecommunication regulators said Friday.
Starting January 1, the upper price of the long-distance call should not exceed 0.60 Yuan a minute, according to the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
Analysts said it's the latest move to trim the fee structure and protect consumer rights in China, the world's No. 1 mobile phone market.
According to the new rules, local communication fees and long-distance fees charged under the current policy will be combined to a long-distance fee only.
At present, callers pay both local and long-distance fees when making domestic long-distance calls.
Analysts said the effects should be relatively small because firms have already restructured their tariffs.
For example, in Heilongjiang, the current 12593 package allows customers to pay 0.2-0.3 Yuan each minute for a long-distance call, only one-third of the upper price.
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